Split-personality house in Catalonia responds to weather and seasonal changes

The OE House is a split-personality residence that provides two different types of spaces to fit the seasonal habits of a family in Catalonia, Spain.

Brooklyn studio Fake Industries Architectural Agonism and local architecture firm Aixopluc teamed up to design a house that would combine winter and summer quarters and transform itself with the way the family inhabits space.

The house is located on the outskirts of a rural town at the foot of the Serra la Mussara mountains in eastern Spain. It acts as a double house enveloped in bi-folding translucent shutters that can be drawn back to connect the living room on the ground floor with a veranda and the outdoors. While the ground floor houses the summer quarters, the first floor is meant to be used more frequently in the winter.

“We provided them with two well-known domestic environments – the open frame of the case study houses for the hedonistic pleasure of the warm season, topped with the interiorised existentialism of Le Corbusier‘s Maison Jaoul for the windy months in the Serra de la Mussara,” said the team. “We did it literally.”

The architects introduced the translucent facade on the ground floor to allow the family to change their habits depending on the weather and time of year. The first floor features polycarbonate panels and shutters can be pulled down over the glazed walls. The vaulted brick ceiling is inspired by a traditional Catalan building technique of creating gently curved surfaces. The project utilizes both contemporary and traditional materials and techniques to delineate the two parts of the house. This choice was also greatly influenced by a tight timeframe.